Not Traditional, Original

There are not as many tools for working with the Septuagint as with the KJV or the NIV. There is a concordance listed on Amazon, but it is expensive and written in Greek. If you want to search for a word in the LXX you can use the excellent free resource, the E-Sword program. The search is more time-consuming, and will not be as exhaustive as Strong’s or Young’s, but you can delve into the usage of the word in the Greek using this tool. You must know enough Greek to recognize the word you are searching. And since Greek has different word endings for different genders and cases be prepared to search more than one word ending to get sufficient insight into the word you are researching.

For our example we are going to look for the word “logos” in Greek. We want to see where these words in the first chapter of John have been used, at least in the translators viewpoint, in the Septuagint.

You will either need to use a Greek font, or symbol to type in the search window or you can copy and paste from a Greek text within the E-Sword program. I have found copying and pasting a word from the Septuagint into the search dialog box the most reliable method:

In the example above, I went to the Septuagint version tab, and and found Jeremiah chapter 1 verse two because I knew that the “word of the Lord” used the Greek word logos. Then, as seen in the picture I highlighted the Greek word logos, opened the search dialog box, and pasted it there. Once I clicked Search it brought up 205 verses where that particular spelling is used. I say spelling because the Greek search is not as intuitive as a search for an English word would be. The program only finds that exact spelling, including the accent marks.

In English you can put in the root form of the word, and then click on “include partial match”, and it will find multiple forms of that word. I did not find that E sword will will do that with a Greek root.

Still this is a valuable tool, as is illustrated in the example above. There I found hundreds of usages of the word I was looking for. Having those I can begin to analyze the meaning by examining the way it is used in the various contexts it is found.

Original Christianity

This web is a look at primitive, original Christianity, how it developed over time and how it compares to current practices.

Why? Click to Read More...

"Jesus Christ is Lord" is the common belief of billions of Christians. But there are tens of thousands of denominations. While ancient denominations like the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox claim to be the original and consequently "true" church, innumerable churches and denominations have started citing error in these ancient bastions and/or the leading of the spirit to reform the church and restore the church.

There are numerous disputed issues. Cessation doctrine (prophecy and the gifts of the spirit ended with the apostles), infant baptism, the inerrancy of Scripture, the form of Church government, the role of women in the church, and currently, the acceptance of homosexuality are just some of the many disputed doctrines that cause the Christian body to be so divided.

The Reformation movement performed an invaluable service. But instead of simply reforming the church or simply working to create one more correct alternative church the Reformation movement worked to increase the number of disputes over scripture and consequently the number of splits has increased exponentially.

The problem with looking at all the denominations is that it can become confusing to just compare this church or denomination to that one. The complexity of looking at all the theological implications can become overwhelming. For many busy people that means just making the best, less than fully educated decision they can, and staying with the church of their heritage or finding a church where they feel they can grow.
Just finding the information can be an overwhelming task. Putting it into some understandable framework is an even more complicated task.

This web site, rather than trying to just compare all the current positions on the differences goes back to the beginning (primitive, original Christianity) and evaluates Christianity starting at that point. This includes looking at the gospel accounts, but also includes looking at early church documents as well as other ancient documents, both secular and religious. (There is also a section on Philosophy because its profound impact on Christian theological development.) The articles have numerous references to works both in print and online.

Next the web site looks at the developments in Christianity from original Christianity forward to see how the church developed over time comparing each development with what we know about original Christianity. The goals are:

To trace the development of the church from start to now to see how the church at large wound up with all these competing churches/denominations today, and

To equip people with the knowledge of original Christianity to enable people to make an informed decision on what is the true faith and practice of the church Jesus Christ started.